It's called responsibility and balance. Yes, I could throw all of my money in a high interest account and have absolutely nothing available to me and have to rely on borrowing like you suggest, or I can keep a chunk of money in accessible accounts in case of these emergencies you mention, and put the rest in higher yield investments. You should never tie up all of your money at once, that's common sense of financials. You guys all seem to have an entirely different mindset of borrowing money being the cool thing to do. That's the issue our country has today, people would RATHER borrow money than be responsible ahead of time. Like Brandon just said, it's gaming the system. In your opinions it's better to game the system for every last bit of interest rather than have the personal responsibility to know you can cover what you need to pay, when you need to pay it by yourself without having to borrow money.

Like I said, having a credit card just in case is not a bad thing at all. It's a valuable tool that when used right is great to have. But I wouldn't start relying on it to be my emergency fund at all. I consider that irresponsible. And you most certainly don't need to have one, nor are you handling your money wrong to not have one. Credit cards are the easy way to have backup money without actually having backup money. So what if I missed out on a couple hundred dollars in interest over time. I didn't LOSE any money though, and I have the personal satisfaction to know I can cover my own ass without having to get someone else to cover me.

You may have misread. He has 30 to 55 days to pay it off without interest. The second the emergency happens, he can pay for it with the credit card and start the process of cashing in his mutual funds and stocks to pay for it. He has the money right then and there to make the emergency payment with the card, and before the credit card bill is up, has the ability to pay for it without interest.

Yup. Again, it's a hypothetical situation. If my AC broke at home or there's a leak in my roof, I can't wait a week for the funds to clear out of my investment accounts to my checking account. Credit cards solve that issue, and since I'll pay it off in full when the statement is due, it's a free short-term loan that reduces my stress.

Neither of these are an emergency situation, that's exactly how you're supposed to use a credit card.

The only cash I carry is enough to cover odd cash-only transactions. That doesn't mean me buying groceries is me covering an emergency on my credit card.

It's called responsibility and balance. Yes, I could throw all of my money in a high interest account and have absolutely nothing available to me and have to rely on borrowing like you suggest, or I can keep a chunk of money in accessible accounts in case of these emergencies you mention, and put the rest in higher yield investments. You should never tie up all of your money at once, that's common sense of financials. You guys all seem to have an entirely different mindset of borrowing money being the cool thing to do. That's the issue our country has today, people would RATHER borrow money than be responsible ahead of time. Like Brandon just said, it's gaming the system. In your opinions it's better to game the system for every last bit of interest rather than have the personal responsibility to know you can cover what you need to pay, when you need to pay it by yourself without having to borrow money.

Like I said, having a credit card just in case is not a bad thing at all. It's a valuable tool that when used right is great to have. But I wouldn't start relying on it to be my emergency fund at all. I consider that irresponsible. And you most certainly don't need to have one, nor are you handling your money wrong to not have one. Credit cards are the easy way to have backup money without actually having backup money. So what if I missed out on a couple hundred dollars in interest over time. I didn't LOSE any money though, and I have the personal satisfaction to know I can cover my own ass without having to get someone else to cover me.

Additionally, you're not only missing out on interest earnings, but also valuable rewards that dwarf anything you an do with cash alone.

Another example from my life...

Me and my wife wanted to go to Canada for my parents-in-law 40th wedding anniversary. With me working full time it had to be a very short trip (a weekend) so flying was realistically the only option. Except tickets were $1400 each way from PHL to YYZ. Using my Amex reward miles we saved over $4K in airfare and that was free earnings for us.

Additionally, you're not only missing out on interest earnings, but also valuable rewards that dwarf anything you an do with cash alone.

Another example from my life...

Me and my wife wanted to go to Canada for my parents-in-law 40th wedding anniversary. With me working full time it had to be a very short trip (a weekend) so flying was realistically the only option. Except tickets were $1400 each way from PHL to YYZ. Using my Amex reward miles we saved over $4K in airfare and that was free earnings for us.

Rewards are the best thing about a credit card now days, I'll definitely give you that. But the most popular rewards for a long time were airline miles, and my dad works for an airline so that doesn't really apply to me. I know they are doing a lot more rewards now though like you were mentioning earlier, and security on your spending on credit cards is good as well. Remember, I said several times that credit cards aren't evil and when used right are great, I originally was just trying to make the point that they are definitely not a necessity. What you're talking about is using them wisely, likely planning how you use them to work in your favor. That method of using a credit card still would suggest you have an emergency fund in savings to cover most random expenses that come up, and then putting planned transactions on the card to give you the best leverage. I still reject the notion of having a card with the intention of using it as your emergency fund, because you can't plan when emergencies will happen. They can certainly be there as a last ditch effort in the case of needing to free up larger chunks of money from savings, but I wouldn't consider it wise to do so as a habit.

I had a friend visit me this past weekend. He had a 93' Olds' Cutlass. Needless to say, 10 miles from my house, the transmission blew. It cost 3x as much as the car was worth to fix it, so we went car shopping. Since he didn't have his check book with him, we were able to cover the $4,000 downpayment on a credit card, and pay it off online when we got home right away

i am 26, i have never had nor do i ever want a credit card. you can also used pre-paid cards to help build your credit as well as just having recurring bills in your name (like utility bills)

The bills thing will only come into play if you don't pay and they go to a collector that reports to the credit agencies. Otherwise they typically don't appear on your credit history at all which isn't helpful. Prepaid cards might help a bit, but they probably only count as much as having bank accounts count - they aren't revolving credit (you don't really have a line of credit with them).